If the professor can't keep the attention of his or her students with wireless in the classroom, it's likely or at least possible that s/he wasn't able to give an interesting lecture before the advent of this technology.
-- what stops the state or federal govt (or a malicious third-party, like a stalker) from tracking where you go?
-- how does Oregon collect from out-of-state travellers?
If the purpose of the law is to collect revenue for road usage, what about this can't be done via conventional toll roads, with the use of "EZPass"-style transponders to collect payment?
This is probably cheaper and certainly a more robust way to handle road usage costs than going to an untested and privacy-violating GPS system.
Is Oregon a test-bed for how the government can track the movements of its largely car-bound citizens?
In a post-DMCA world ten years after digital recording devices are proscribed, you get searched because you wear glasses, you have a book on OOP and a laptop in your bag.
Where does the arbitrary nature of a police state -- like that which the US is becoming -- stop?
While OpenSSH 3.4p1 fixes the bug that lead to offering a priv-sep version in 3.3p1, the July Security Update does not modify the Netinfo tables to add a sshd user and group, along with the other configuration steps listed in README.privsep. It is suggested that Apple engineers may address privilege separation in Jaguar or an update to Jaguar.
The food in Finland is an excellent way to lose mass! I lost a great deal of weight from being immersed in a repulsive Finnish Electro-herring Field for two weeks. I was then subjected to a four hour experiment involving approximately 1.5 liters of vodka and a sauna. I spun around, vomited profusely and eventually lost more than 2% of my body mass! Finland rocks!
The problem with any nuclear propulsion system is its imperfect design, by its nature, leaving a small, but non-zero chance of explosion or other incident that would dump a quantity of isotopes and heavy metal particulates into the atmosphere.
The higher these contaminants go (up to about 35 km, where air starts to dissipate), the larger the geographic area over which these contaminants will eventually spread.
Call it tree-hugging if you will, but I am critical of letting a large chunk of the human race bear the consequences of scientific failure.
At least with Hickam's arctic explorers, those fellows who perished didn't take down the rest of the species with them. The mission was risky, but to a small group of men.
The risk of this kind of mission is simply too great for rational consideration.
A smarter, less risky idea would be to reach the moon via safer means, and mine its surface for compounds needed to propel us to further destinations.
I support a department of 250 workstations and printers. We are 80% Mac and I can manage this pretty well all by myself.
Think about that for a second: One person can manage IT support for a large department.
What this has meant is that because I haven't had to spend as much time with virus cleaning and fixing cheaply made Wintel hardware and software, so I can work on improving overall computer infrastructure instead of just fixing what we have.
In practical terms, over three years, my department now has four computer classrooms, 100BaseT networking where we used to have 10Base2 coaxial, safe and secure servers, and wireless networking. This is a direct result of supporting Macs.
Their version of feedback in live shows is more of a visceral, human thing, not really reliant on biomonitoring data from electronic devices. But one of the musicians talks about certain algorithms in his music having certain effects on a crowd, and how he tunes his response according to the vibe.
Lots of links on systemic music.. where to start...
There are many reasons why Linux is a failure where Apple is strong, and why Apple will continue to be a profitable, successful company making a commercial desktop operating system:
Apple's operating system has a consistent, single, rational user interface; Linux does not have a consistent user interface (Gnome, KDE, etc.)
MacOS does not require the purchase of several +$50 "How-To" books to be installed, maintained, and repaired; lots of luck with Linux if something goes wrong and you don't know what to do or where to turn
MacOS focuses on the user, with server tasks being secondary; Linux's primary "market share" has always been the server crowd
More to the point, MacOS focuses on specific niche markets that are sexy, creative and highly profitable, such as graphic artists, video editors, etc.; Linux has no core drive outside of the server market, which -- despite what Raymond and the rest of you will claim -- is a real and substantial weakness that will spell Linux's downfall. Too many unpaid cooks doing too many different, incompatible things will kill widespread dispersion of your OS
When can we look forward to real MS Office-compatible tools on Linux? Linux has no relationship with Microsoft, which hurts it as a desktop replacement for the MacOS
Linux is a security nightmare. Make sure you're running the latest of everything!
So that's the current reality. Let's look to the future, with MacOS X, a BSD variant:
It will better take advantage of the strengths of the RISC PPC chipset and leave open the possibility of work on other chipsets.
The MacOS X Server component will allow power users to do all the server tasks that Linux is capable of, while doing things in a coherent, directed, rational manner. XML configuration and GUI interfaces for services come to mind. With server software on the Mac, it has always been about getting up and running as quickly and safely as possible.
Despite the boosterist leadership, Linux does not have a rosy future in desktop OS.
A good read on this subject is Jean Baudrillard's "The Gulf War Did Not Take Place". We consume war just like we consume any other violent media in America's marketplace:
Of relevance to Slashdot's audience, artificially-lowered oil prices keep the costs of computer manufacture and delivery down, fueling the information age.
It might not only have been a war fought in the vein of a "Blood for Oil" trade but a "Blood for Computers" trade, too. America's current prosperity has its roots in maintaining an uneasy sovereignty in the Middle East.
As in almost all of his post-Python movies, Gilliam explored the schizophrenia or what is now called "multiple personality disorder" in "Brazil"s protagonist.
Harry Tuttle is a figure of Sam's imagination. It is really Sam who mends the ducts, plays a prank on Hoskins and his assistant, and envisions Tuttle's daring rescue attempt as he is clasps helpless during his interrogation/execution. Tuttle is a hallucination, a fevered product of Sam's psychosis.
The "hacker" intent of Brazil -- if present -- is incidental at best.
After Dr. Pollack's interview on Slashdot last week, I am curious as to what you think about his notion of "dispossession," where coders are encouraged through a sort of "peer pressure" to release their stuff into the community without any compensation.
I imagine a situation not too far into the future where there is potential for serious misuse of free technologies, with no legal (that is, reasonably successful) recourse available to the coder or coders, software which also ends up being used to violate the civil rights of average citizens.
One example might be where use of open source, heavy cryptography is regulated and exploited by government and corporate groups to questionable ends.
I mean, how much weight can the GPL and other licenses hold in a courtroom? What individual or small group has the resources to fight with _______ (insert monolithic entity with lots of pull and cash)?
1. How deep do the root of A.thaliana grow into the soil? I've only seen them with shallow root-balls in potting trays.
This is a good point -- that's how they are grown in the lab. Work in our department on A. thalania is mostly directed towards sequencing, with "off-shoot" projects such as photoremediation. Another lab is working on a gene in Arabidopsis that affects its leaf growth cycle, but its analogous gene in humans acts our internal alarm clock(!). Its size and short growth cycle is a real advantage for plant scientists, reasons that molecular biologists use the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster.
2.If their roots are shallow then doesn't it just clean up the surface? Does one then have to take contaminated soil and spread it out in thin layers?
Probably at least as thin as the root tendrils could reach.
3.If one is doing this (excavating and trucking huge masses of contaminated soil) then how does using plants compare to using a chemical engineering approach or a bio-reactor?
Growing plants is an energy-efficient and largely waste-free way of remediation. Let the sun feed the plants. No nasty solvents and complex, expensive separation protocols involved.
Conceivably, a bio-reactor could be used here. The transporter gene that Rea's lab works on was added to common baking yeast (S. cerevisiae) for the purpose of isolating metal tolerant strains. So why not add this gene to E. coli, add some cadmium-laced sludge and let it go to work?
I would argue that the reproduction and unintended spread of a microorganism like E. coli is much more difficult to control than a plant. While this hypothetical metal-eating machine clearly would benefit humans in a very specific situation, there is no telling of the ecological consequences of this organism getting wild.
4.Does the promise of miraculous clean up technology lull the public about current pollution and detract from alleviating the core problem of production of pollutants?
No technological solution will work to completely solve the complex problem of waste. I agree 100% that behaviorial changes must be made -- from the multinationals down to the individual -- to curb waste production. (And especially by the United States, a country with the gall to ask developing nations not to pollute so much or sell its petrol so expensive when it fills up its SUVs with premium!)
A lab in my department is doing research on this very subject, looking for gene mutations that will give an Arabidopsis thalania plant the ability to leach cadmium and other heavy metals from polluted soils.
For obvious reasons the EPA is very interested in this work as a means of very cheaply processing abandoned toxic dump (so-called "Superfund") sites. After growing a field of modified Arabidopsis, the material can be harvested and incinerated, separating the compounds for re-use or safe disposal.
Not all biotechnology is about Monsanto taking over the world!
the regulator is the economy
on
The Regulon
·
· Score: 1
modern media are in competition with each other, not only for information, but for the means of and platform for disseminating information (so-called market share).
the media regulator is a hybrid of market forces and prevalent political structure. both elements combine to shape what media products are consumed, and by whom, and to what purpose.
to control media, therefore, you must control the market (people as well as capital) that consumes media, as well as the organizations that govern the market (people or capital).
currently, only a few immensely wealthy individual shareholders hold the power to direct the course of these elements, to control media to a particular end. so if you are looking to reshape media to a specific purpose, you must look in this direction.
Barring polymorphic computer virii, this metaphor of "ecology" is overextended, an artistic exaggeration.
Put simply, a computer virus is not a living organism in the usual sense. It does not "mutate". (The statisical liklihood of a computer virus evolving from pure chance is far greater than the lifetime of the universe.) It does not reproduce sexually or asexually.
Moreover, computer operating systems and their virii have not even scratched the surface of the incredible variety and complexity of the immune system of human beings.
You could probably compare the state of computer virii and AV software today to bacteria methylating their own DNA to protect its own DNA from restriction enzymes that instead attack foreign DNA (read, virus material).
The best that these AV programs can do today is look for signatures or activity of *known* viruses.
"Taunting" a virus to trigger in a protected space only works if you know the virus phenotype in the first place.
Scanning network packets seems to be an expensive and legally tricky proposition, since most virii will be inside binary files, which means you not only have to look for MIME data inside packets, but decode them too, which involves a whole other security issue altogether. And then you will only catch the virus that you have information on, that you already know about.
Nature tends to eliminate unneeded genetic parts over time so it is likely that the organism is very close to having as small a genetic code as possible to allow it to survive and reproduce.
This is false. On average, only about 25% of sequenced DNA from organisms that we sequence right now is connected to actual genes. The rest of it either codes for genes for which we have no idea of their function or it codes for nothing -- so-called 'junk DNA'.
'Junk DNA' is postulated to have a benefit for organisms that can devote resources to replicating it, repairing it, etc. because it statistically reduces the effect of mutation on necessary DNA.
One, with a little more background reading, the reader will notice that there is nothing stopping Monsanto from *licensing* the 'terminator' gene technology to other agribusinesses. Monsanto has only agreed to not distribute this genetically modified seed under its own setup. This is an important point, because it allows Monsanto an out to make profits from the technology while preserving the corporate image in the public eye.
Two, the argument that Monsanto deserves to make profits from its technology is valid.
However...
By distributing fertile seed, they in effect kill any future profits and their own business.
...this reasoning is reductio ad absurdum.
Assuming that all farmers are forced by this 'terminator' gene business model to use seed of the same genetic constitution, any natural predator that adapts to consume modified seed will be very successful.
Assume further that 50% of world farmers buy this seed and then redistribute new seed to the remaining half. This should provide enough profits for Monsanto to develop a more robust, higher-yield seed, and provide enough incentive for the first half to buy the second generation of modified seed, and so on.
The percentages are hypothetical but the point remains. In the short term, Monsanto would gain from distributing the 'terminator' gene technology. In the long run it would not be such a hot idea.
Slashdot Mirror
If the professor can't keep the attention of his or her students with wireless in the classroom, it's likely or at least possible that s/he wasn't able to give an interesting lecture before the advent of this technology.
So a couple of issues come to mind immediately:
-- what stops the state or federal govt (or a malicious third-party, like a stalker) from tracking where you go?
-- how does Oregon collect from out-of-state travellers?
If the purpose of the law is to collect revenue for road usage, what about this can't be done via conventional toll roads, with the use of "EZPass"-style transponders to collect payment?
This is probably cheaper and certainly a more robust way to handle road usage costs than going to an untested and privacy-violating GPS system.
Is Oregon a test-bed for how the government can track the movements of its largely car-bound citizens?
-Alex
We'll charge a percentage on every gun transaction and make a killing, ho ho ho.
Google works with the governments of China and France, among others, to filter the political content of search results.
As much I personally like that they are against gun proliferation, that is censorship, and Google seems comfortable for censorship.
Read the article, pal.
Kudos to them, then, for standing behind their beliefs
I suppose then they also stand behind censorship and autocratic governments?
Megakudos!
In a post-DMCA world ten years after digital recording devices are proscribed, you get searched because you wear glasses, you have a book on OOP and a laptop in your bag.
Where does the arbitrary nature of a police state -- like that which the US is becoming -- stop?
-Alex
On the other hand, if a scientist doesn't patent an idea, a corporation surely will.
Don't assume all patents are established entirely with profit in mind.
There are concepts of protecting intellectual property and the value of research in terms of both time and money.
-Alex
Open Sherlock 3 under Mac OS X 10.2.
Click once on the Translation channel in the Toolbar.
Copy and paste the Chinese text within the top half and make sure you have the "Chinese (Simplified) to English" filter selected.
Then click the Translate button.
...then why won't these companies make software on feature parity for other platforms, say, like Mac OS X or 9?
For the same reason that they don't do it for Linux users: we're cheapskates who don't want to pay for the labor of others, when it comes down to it.
Let's be honest about what this is really asking for...
It's better that SU looks at checksums of incoming packages, I agree.
But how does it verify the checksums it matches?
If SU is looking up a list of checksums on a web site somewhere, what stops this attack from happening again?
Just set up another spoofed web server that dishes out checksums for bogus packages, and SU thinks everything is okay...
While OpenSSH 3.4p1 fixes the bug that lead to offering a priv-sep version in 3.3p1, the July Security Update does not modify the Netinfo tables to add a sshd user and group, along with the other configuration steps listed in README.privsep. It is suggested that Apple engineers may address privilege separation in Jaguar or an update to Jaguar.
The food in Finland is an excellent way to lose mass! I lost a great deal of weight from being immersed in a repulsive Finnish Electro-herring Field for two weeks. I was then subjected to a four hour experiment involving approximately 1.5 liters of vodka and a sauna. I spun around, vomited profusely and eventually lost more than 2% of my body mass! Finland rocks!
The problem with any nuclear propulsion system is its imperfect design, by its nature, leaving a small, but non-zero chance of explosion or other incident that would dump a quantity of isotopes and heavy metal particulates into the atmosphere.
The higher these contaminants go (up to about 35 km, where air starts to dissipate), the larger the geographic area over which these contaminants will eventually spread.
Call it tree-hugging if you will, but I am critical of letting a large chunk of the human race bear the consequences of scientific failure.
At least with Hickam's arctic explorers, those fellows who perished didn't take down the rest of the species with them. The mission was risky, but to a small group of men.
The risk of this kind of mission is simply too great for rational consideration.
A smarter, less risky idea would be to reach the moon via safer means, and mine its surface for compounds needed to propel us to further destinations.
I support a department of 250 workstations and printers. We are 80% Mac and I can manage this pretty well all by myself.
Think about that for a second: One person can manage IT support for a large department.
What this has meant is that because I haven't had to spend as much time with virus cleaning and fixing cheaply made Wintel hardware and software, so I can work on improving overall computer infrastructure instead of just fixing what we have.
In practical terms, over three years, my department now has four computer classrooms, 100BaseT networking where we used to have 10Base2 coaxial, safe and secure servers, and wireless networking. This is a direct result of supporting Macs.
I did an interview with Autechre about generative music here:
. cgi?newsid1004112934,55737,
http://www.autechre.nu/cgi-bin/newspro/interviews
Their version of feedback in live shows is more of a visceral, human thing, not really reliant on biomonitoring data from electronic devices. But one of the musicians talks about certain algorithms in his music having certain effects on a crowd, and how he tunes his response according to the vibe.
Lots of links on systemic music.. where to start...
One place is a Java plugin for drawing together systems of sound: http://www.softsynth.com/jsyn/. Application of it here: http://www.yeeking.freewire.co.uk/html/index.html
Another is Dr. Essl's fLOW: http://www.essl.at/works/flow.html.
Or Sseyo's KOAN: http://www.sseyo.com/
And of course a standard like Max/MSP: http://www.cycling72.com/
Happy generations!
- Apple's operating system has a consistent, single, rational user interface; Linux does not have a consistent user interface (Gnome, KDE, etc.)
So that's the current reality. Let's look to the future, with MacOS X, a BSD variant:MacOS does not require the purchase of several +$50 "How-To" books to be installed, maintained, and repaired; lots of luck with Linux if something goes wrong and you don't know what to do or where to turn
MacOS focuses on the user, with server tasks being secondary; Linux's primary "market share" has always been the server crowd
More to the point, MacOS focuses on specific niche markets that are sexy, creative and highly profitable, such as graphic artists, video editors, etc.; Linux has no core drive outside of the server market, which -- despite what Raymond and the rest of you will claim -- is a real and substantial weakness that will spell Linux's downfall. Too many unpaid cooks doing too many different, incompatible things will kill widespread dispersion of your OS
When can we look forward to real MS Office-compatible tools on Linux? Linux has no relationship with Microsoft, which hurts it as a desktop replacement for the MacOS
Linux is a security nightmare. Make sure you're running the latest of everything!
- It will better take advantage of the strengths of the RISC PPC chipset and leave open the possibility of work on other chipsets.
Despite the boosterist leadership, Linux does not have a rosy future in desktop OS.The MacOS X Server component will allow power users to do all the server tasks that Linux is capable of, while doing things in a coherent, directed, rational manner. XML configuration and GUI interfaces for services come to mind. With server software on the Mac, it has always been about getting up and running as quickly and safely as possible.
The Gulf War Did Not Take Place
Of relevance to Slashdot's audience, artificially-lowered oil prices keep the costs of computer manufacture and delivery down, fueling the information age.
It might not only have been a war fought in the vein of a "Blood for Oil" trade but a "Blood for Computers" trade, too. America's current prosperity has its roots in maintaining an uneasy sovereignty in the Middle East.
Harry Tuttle is a figure of Sam's imagination. It is really Sam who mends the ducts, plays a prank on Hoskins and his assistant, and envisions Tuttle's daring rescue attempt as he is clasps helpless during his interrogation/execution. Tuttle is a hallucination, a fevered product of Sam's psychosis.
The "hacker" intent of Brazil -- if present -- is incidental at best.
I imagine a situation not too far into the future where there is potential for serious misuse of free technologies, with no legal (that is, reasonably successful) recourse available to the coder or coders, software which also ends up being used to violate the civil rights of average citizens.
One example might be where use of open source, heavy cryptography is regulated and exploited by government and corporate groups to questionable ends.
I mean, how much weight can the GPL and other licenses hold in a courtroom? What individual or small group has the resources to fight with _______ (insert monolithic entity with lots of pull and cash)?
This is a good point -- that's how they are grown in the lab. Work in our department on A. thalania is mostly directed towards sequencing, with "off-shoot" projects such as photoremediation. Another lab is working on a gene in Arabidopsis that affects its leaf growth cycle, but its analogous gene in humans acts our internal alarm clock(!). Its size and short growth cycle is a real advantage for plant scientists, reasons that molecular biologists use the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster.
2.If their roots are shallow then doesn't it just clean up the surface? Does one then have to take contaminated soil and spread it out in thin layers?
Probably at least as thin as the root tendrils could reach.
3.If one is doing this (excavating and trucking huge masses of contaminated soil) then how does using plants compare to using a chemical engineering approach or a bio-reactor?
Growing plants is an energy-efficient and largely waste-free way of remediation. Let the sun feed the plants. No nasty solvents and complex, expensive separation protocols involved.
Conceivably, a bio-reactor could be used here. The transporter gene that Rea's lab works on was added to common baking yeast (S. cerevisiae) for the purpose of isolating metal tolerant strains. So why not add this gene to E. coli, add some cadmium-laced sludge and let it go to work?
I would argue that the reproduction and unintended spread of a microorganism like E. coli is much more difficult to control than a plant. While this hypothetical metal-eating machine clearly would benefit humans in a very specific situation, there is no telling of the ecological consequences of this organism getting wild.
4.Does the promise of miraculous clean up technology lull the public about current pollution and detract from alleviating the core problem of production of pollutants?
No technological solution will work to completely solve the complex problem of waste. I agree 100% that behaviorial changes must be made -- from the multinationals down to the individual -- to curb waste production. (And especially by the United States, a country with the gall to ask developing nations not to pollute so much or sell its petrol so expensive when it fills up its SUVs with premium!)
So far results are promising:
-- http://www.sas.upenn.edu/biology/facult y/rea/
For obvious reasons the EPA is very interested in this work as a means of very cheaply processing abandoned toxic dump (so-called "Superfund") sites. After growing a field of modified Arabidopsis, the material can be harvested and incinerated, separating the compounds for re-use or safe disposal.
Not all biotechnology is about Monsanto taking over the world!
the media regulator is a hybrid of market forces and prevalent political structure. both elements combine to shape what media products are consumed, and by whom, and to what purpose.
to control media, therefore, you must control the market (people as well as capital) that consumes media, as well as the organizations that govern the market (people or capital).
currently, only a few immensely wealthy individual shareholders hold the power to direct the course of these elements, to control media to a particular end. so if you are looking to reshape media to a specific purpose, you must look in this direction.
Barring polymorphic computer virii, this metaphor of "ecology" is overextended, an artistic exaggeration.
Put simply, a computer virus is not a living organism in the usual sense. It does not "mutate". (The statisical liklihood of a computer virus evolving from pure chance is far greater than the lifetime of the universe.) It does not reproduce sexually or asexually.
Moreover, computer operating systems and their virii have not even scratched the surface of the incredible variety and complexity of the immune system of human beings.
You could probably compare the state of computer virii and AV software today to bacteria methylating their own DNA to protect its own DNA from restriction enzymes that instead attack foreign DNA (read, virus material).
The best that these AV programs can do today is look for signatures or activity of *known* viruses.
"Taunting" a virus to trigger in a protected space only works if you know the virus phenotype in the first place.
Scanning network packets seems to be an expensive and legally tricky proposition, since most virii will be inside binary files, which means you not only have to look for MIME data inside packets, but decode them too, which involves a whole other security issue altogether. And then you will only catch the virus that you have information on, that you already know about.
This is false. On average, only about 25% of sequenced DNA from organisms that we sequence right now is connected to actual genes. The rest of it either codes for genes for which we have no idea of their function or it codes for nothing -- so-called 'junk DNA'.
'Junk DNA' is postulated to have a benefit for organisms that can devote resources to replicating it, repairing it, etc. because it statistically reduces the effect of mutation on necessary DNA.
Two, the argument that Monsanto deserves to make profits from its technology is valid.
However...
By distributing fertile seed, they in effect kill any future profits and their own business.
Assuming that all farmers are forced by this 'terminator' gene business model to use seed of the same genetic constitution, any natural predator that adapts to consume modified seed will be very successful.
Assume further that 50% of world farmers buy this seed and then redistribute new seed to the remaining half. This should provide enough profits for Monsanto to develop a more robust, higher-yield seed, and provide enough incentive for the first half to buy the second generation of modified seed, and so on.
The percentages are hypothetical but the point remains. In the short term, Monsanto would gain from distributing the 'terminator' gene technology. In the long run it would not be such a hot idea.